


Full of light upon this earth

by Adazzle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Chronic Illness, Church of England, Death of a Parent, Death of a Spouse, F/F, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Minor Character Death, Terminal Illnesses, no like a lot of angst, reluctantly cursed child-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28766583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adazzle/pseuds/Adazzle
Summary: Four times Scorpius Malfoy’s mother leaves him, one time his father does, and an epilogue as they come back together
Relationships: Astoria Greengrass & Daphne Greengrass, Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Daphne Greengrass/Pansy Parkinson, future Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Full of light upon this earth

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: Death of a parent, death of a loved one in childhood, depression, grief, chronic and terminal illnesses. HEAVY ANGST.
> 
> title, and section titles from Matthew 25:21 by the Mountain Goats
> 
> Epilogue title from Joyce Grenfell's poem " Death (if I should go)
> 
> I've had a week packed full of emotions, which has included several losses. After praying, I sat and listened to the Mountain Goats and wrote this to process.
> 
> I don't own content
> 
> Obligatory note: I do not support JKR's stances on trans rights and you are welcome here no matter your identity or orientation.  
> Kind of obligatory note: There are many nice things about the cursed child, but there are also..erm..other things, so it's loose canon if that for me. Much of this isn't my headcanon, just some imaginations after a long week. CC fanfiction is great, though! Also, I am very very firmly in the Astoria lives! Club but I wrote this to process grieving.

1) Mitigate the pain a little bit  
Scorpius had known about the rumors since he was eight. His parents had taken him to an end of season Chudley Cannons game. It would be their last family outing for three years, before they eventually took him to the train station to go to Hogwarts, other than quick trips to to the Muggle farmer’s market and public library.

It was only his second outing in the wizarding world. Scorpius considered himself a smart kid, and he knew why they couldn’t go out. His mum got sick if certain things were near her, and there were a lot of those things. Pollen, certain magical substances, Pepperup potions, foods with citrus, foods with beef, foods with-

He had the list memorized. Dad said he didn’t have to, but he re-memorized it every year as it got longer and longer. He tried to be understanding about why they had to live in the manor. Mum had to be in a house with a lot of magic, and that meant an old house. The magic kept her reactions to stimuli - he rolled the word around his tongue-from being too extreme. 

You’re rambling, he told himself firmly. They’d gone to the game for his birthday and because at the end of a bad season, the stadium wasn’t too populated and was less of a risk for his Mum. His favorite team was the Wasps, but he was still happy.

They’d arrived just before the star, and his Dad was busy helping Mum up the stairs, so Scorpius could get away to sneak a look at the stack of Daily Prophets. One was opened up a few pages in on the top. Community Members Urge Investigation into Son of Voldemort and Scorpius Malfoy caught his eye. 

His dad looked back and saw him standing still. “What are you reading, Scorpius?” he asked. “Why does it say my name?” He whispered.

They didn’t stay for the game.

Normally, Draco was the more distant of Scorpius’ parents. He was stern and protective. He was who Scorpius went to with questions about history or astronomy. He stood up for Scorpius’ mum when his grandparents said something mean about her. He taught Scorpius humility by letting his son see him laugh at himself when he got Muggle money confused at the farmers market, and he taught him generosity by letting Scorpius sit with him managing investments and phillophrampic requests-his donations were always anonymous, and he told Scorpius that you were supposed to do good things because they were good , not because you’d get attention.

Astoria, more carefree and physically affectionate, was the one Scorpius went to when he was afraid or upset when he doesn’t understand a school question. She taught him to be kind and patient in the way she nursed rare plants back to health, Scorpius playing at her feet. She soothed his anxiety. He learned how to take deep breaths and be calm when they practiced arithmancy together, and put everything down into an equation and reminded themselves of rules and what they can and can’t control. She did silly things with him like making mud pies and jumping in rain puddles 

That’s why it’s so strange that when they got home, Scorpius saw his mother, crying as she told his father she needed to lie down. “I’m really sorry, love”, she said as she hugged him. Scorpius was almost taller than her already, and he hugged her back, afraid as he always was that he would hug too tightly. “You don’t deserve any of this.” She walked away, crying harder as Scorpius stood with unanswered questions.

It was Scorpius’ father who made him tea and sat him down and let him press up against him in a long hug once it really hit him that a lot of people in wizarding Britain think his mum is evil and hate him. He was angrier for Mum, but he’s sadder for him, and he felt guilty about it.

He figured out slowly that his Mum must be upstairs because she was sadder for herself and angrier for him. She couldn’t go into Diagon Alley to speak up and defend them. Some days she couldn’t get out of bed.

He felt guilty for wishing his Mum was there hugging him too.

2) won’t know til it’s too late  
When he was ten, Scorpius finds out his father had a Dark Mark. He was reading a thick history book in French when he came across a list of names of those marked. He knew about Lucius, but not the name that came underneath

Draco Malfoy-marked 1996

He decided the book must have made an error and looked across the breakfast nook at his mum. “I think the book is incorrect”, he told her firmly. She got up to flip through the pages with him, gently asking him what he thought was wrong. 

“It says dad had a Dark Mark.” 

Looking back, he understood that his mother let his father tell him because his father would leave him a complicated legacy that would impact their relationship for years. They were Draco’s mistakes made, his story to tell, his sins to repent. His mother had changed her views on Muggleborns because she was in a year with Muggleborn Slytherins and had learned about computer science in books the same Muggleborn Slytherins smuggled in before her horrible fifth year. She had worked in Arithmancy research and was reminded there that C++ was a sort of magic too.

Draco had left him something else entirely.

He still panicked for a second, though, when she squeezed his arm and left to go check on their lunch, ignoring Draco’s panicked, apologetic face.

Draco was still his father, grumpy and detail-oriented and someone who had gotten up at midnight multiple times to draw star maps for him when he was still too little to stay up late to watch an eclipse. 

Those seconds were still a sort of loss.

3) Details carving out space in my head

“So it means I’m not going to get any better.” Astoria said kindly, tying back her dark hair in an all too calm manner. She hadn’t left her bedroom in days, and Scorpius and his father wore masks to talk to her, and didn’t leave the East Wing where she stayed. “The Healers will make sure I don’t feel much pain.” She gestured to the charm that suspended the ports for extra fluid against her left hand. Muggles called them IVs, Scorpius had learned in Muggle studies class.

“I will still be able to talk to you and spend time with you. But one day, probably before the end of the summer, my body will stop functioning. My heart won’t pump blood anymore. I’m comforted by everything I learned when we used to go to church to work at the homeless shelter. But I’m going to miss you very, very much.” Draco swallowed back a sob next to her.

Scorpius was frozen.

He had always, always known his mum was sick, and they talked about how they didn’t really know how or when her illness might make things worse. They had cried together. They had sat in the pews of St John’s Anglican Church and talked about how Astoria wasn’t afraid of dying. He had always felt like he could talk to his mum about anything. She answered complicated constant questions about how they didn’t know much about the blood curse, what it did to something Muggles called cells, how it could be worse some days and not the other.

He didn’t think it would be now, that she would die.

Nobody said anything, after that. Draco made them dinner and they wrapped up in a dark thick blanket, the biggest one in the house, and listened to the radio. Scorpius felt his heart beat faster when he thought about it, and he said no when mum asked if he had any questions, and tried not to think about not being able to hug her.

Nobody said anything, after that.  
4) Speaking through a thick haze  
Draco woke Scorpius up on an early Tuesday morning in late August. The healer had made them tea. His mother’s breathing was slowed.  
In hindsight, he was grateful that they could sit together for a bit. He held her hand and they looked through a book of pictures from when he was small. Around lunch time, the vitals charms on the wall flashed. 

Astoria turned towards Draco. “I’m scared”, she whispered. He leaned over her, touching her shoulders, whispering back softly. Scorpius’ ears were ringing. They had let him decide how involved he wanted to be, the same way they let him decide to go to Hogwarts, and how he just wanted to pretend this was a scene in his head and hug his parents tightly and forget about such awful things.

Astoria reached back, after a few seconds that felt like an eternity, and held his hand and told him that she loved him very, very much. 

“Do you want to leave, baby?” he could barely hear her. He shook his head.

5) Nobody around to break my fall

The day after Astoria died Scorpius woke up and read a chapter of his German historical fiction epic and went to get breakfast. After he got breakfast, he would walk upstairs and say good morning to his mum. If today was a bad day he would sit in her room and draw. If it was a good day, maybe they could find a new book to read.

He got halfway up the stairs when he remembered that his Mum wouldn’t be there.

His aunts were outside his parents’ bedroom, drinking coffee. Daphne had all the same shapes as Astoria, even though her hair was blonde, so he went to Pansy instead and let her embrace him. She didn’t say anything and let him try her Macchiato. 

“Do you know where my dad is?” Pansy rubbed his back. “Your dad is really sad right now, Scorpius.” 

The bedroom door was open, just a little. He could see his dad curled up on the floor. He stepped back, afraid.

He started to cry again.

Daphne got up. “I’ll go and sit with him.” Scorpius noticed her face was stained with tears.

Pansy sat on the cold marble floor and he sat next to her. After a while, he let her wrap her arms around him.

Later that day, after Pansy had made him butternut squash penne that you could apparently only get in Milan, she hugged him again. “It’s really hard”, she said, “to get out of what Draco was in with the Death Eaters. He did it by himself, and he made himself a better person, but your mum was a part of that journey for a really, really long time. He loves you so so much, and he’s going to keep getting better, but it’s going to be hard for him-for both of you-to heal. And that’s ok, Scorpius. Grieving takes a long time.” 

She shifted to look him in the eye. “It’s not ok for him to not be able to be there and be a parent right now. I need you to try and understand why, but I also need you to know that he’s still the parent and you’re the kid. Daphne and I are going to stay here and support both of you as long as we need to and make sure you’re both ok.” Scorpius hugged her back. Pansy was rarely this emotional. She was sharp and cold and liked to give him loud presents that his dad griped about.

“It hurts to think about her.” Scorpius said stiffly. “I feel bad when I look at Aunt Daphne. She looks a lot like mum.” Pansy hugged him tighter. She smelled like cigars and elderflower lemonade, which she has apparently drank every day since she got sober. “I don’t want to forget her.” He pressed his face into her shoulder and kept his eyes closed very tightly. He thought about eating sweets on the train with Albus, and then he felt guilty for thinking about Albus when his Mum was gone and his dad couldn’t get out of bed to talk to him.

Pansy hummed softly in agreement. “Someday”, she told him gently, “you are going to be able to think about all the beautiful things your Mum taught you, and you are going to feel happy that she was your Mum.”

Scorpius fell asleep in the sitting room. Daphne was across from his place on the sopha, playing the piano, while Pansy was knitting a scarf. He didn’t feel warm, but he felt a little less cold.

The next morning, he woke up still and a little confused to see his dad sitting on the sofa next to him. “Dad?” he whispered. “Are you ok?” He sat up slowly. “Can I hug you, Scorpius?” he nodded. They both started to cry. “I’m really sorry.” Draco whispered. “I-I don’t know what to do now. We wrote out a whole plan together, what we would do after she died, and I couldn’t walk down the stairs to see you.”

His dad sat with him, lethargic. His hands were cold, but he was there, rubbing Scorpius’ shoulders and telling him it was ok to not know what to do. They sat there for the day, and didn’t talk much.

Later on, the not talking would help push him into the disastrous decisions of his fourth year, but his dad was there and he loved him.

Epilogue: Be the usual self I have known

Three years after Astoria died, Draco bought a narrow blue Victorian cottage near Gerards’ Cross and got two cats he took for walks and bought tiny matching sweaters for. He got a job lecturing in History at the Wizarding European College of Arts in Brussels.

They still went to visit Astoria’s grave together, once a year, and Scorpius firmly upheld the rule that if his dad didn’t answer a letter for a week he would visit, but Daphne and Pansy and his friends Tony and Alain and sometimes Ginny or Ron would too and so he didn’t worry too often. Too often for him, anyway, and if he felt an anxiety attack coming on he would let Albus sit with him or call his healer.

Scorpius baked his mum’s recipes religiously, but he also learned how to make Chinese dumplings and Roti from scratch and ate his weight in street market food when he and Albus spent a summer studying abroad in the Philippines.

Scorpius and Draco had Christmas in England and sang Astoria’s favorite hymns, but they traveled over New Years, a new location each time, and they talked and talked and talked. Sometimes Albus or Pansy and Daphne came with them, but other times they went alone.

In Sweden, when they went to see the Northern Lights, Draco told him as they waited for the sled transport that Astoria had read a book about the Arctic Circle after she got too sick to travel and wished she had come here. 

“I’m glad we made it, then”, Scorpius said, and felt only light as he looked at the sky, bright and shimmering.


End file.
